Draft General Town Plan available for public inspection
July 18th
The Consultative Document of the new General Town Plan will be on public display until August 31st from 10.00 am until 1.00pm in the Santa Anna Chapel (next to the Technical Office in the Old Town). This document has been passed by a Council plenary meeting and has been submitted to the Department of the Environment for approval and further recommendations, thus the proposals are not necessarily final. The next phase includes a plan of "Citizen's Participation" in which the detailed classification of each zone ( i.e. the use to which each area will be put) will be decided. The plan sees continued growth to a population of 53,000 inhabitants in 10 years. It maps some 10 million metres2 of buildable land divided between 4.3 million classed as urbanisable; 2.5 million urbanisable for which a buliding plan has already been received and 3.2 million m2 of building plots available in urban areas. From Press Release.

Silver Jubilee of - l' Estiu Music - International Student's Music concerts
July 18th
The annual series of Classical music concerts given by music students, tutors and professional musicians will take place in Xàbia from 20 to 25 July. The concerts will be held at 10.30 pm at the plaza outside the new Xàbia Music Conservatory, beside the Plaza de la Constitución. This year wil feature 82 students from 13 different nationalities. (From press relaese)


Fire forces evacuation of 300 from El Naranjal Camping
July 13th
A fire which started on Tuesday afternoon, consumed some 40,000 square metres of abandoned orange groves and scrub, just to the back of the Arenal. Luckily no-one was hurt, though a car was burned out and 300 campers were evacuated from Naranjal Camping while Javea Paintball was threatened. Folk from houses in the area also left their homes to safety. High winds made this a difficult fire to control and smoke and cinders even affected the Old Town. However the fire was controlled by six pm. Although there is no evidence of arson, this is the fourth time there has been a fire in the area this month, and an investigation will be made. It has been noted that this area is due to be protected from urbanisation under the new General Town Plan. From Las Provincias: Un incendio rural....

Xàbia is rich (well, floristically speaking)
July 13th
On 12th July, two biologists charged with with mapping the habitats, plant communities and landscapes of the Comunidad Valenciana, described the results they had obtained for Xàbia. The work of Mr Soler and Dr Fabregat is part of building up the Natura 2000 database in Spain. The aim is to catalogue and identify the different plant habitats so that rational conservation programmes can be developed. Thier methodology involves the use of the "CORINE"  http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/COR0-landcover system for classifying land cover (an EU Standard, also used in other Spanish regions), 1:10,000 scale maps and studies of minimum areas of half a hectare. They discovered at least 48 species of wild plant which were listed as endangered in the Valencian catalogue. This represents 13% of the endangered plant species in the Community, all surviving in Xàbia Municipality, an area which comprises only 0.5% of the Comunidad. Nine of the plants species were in danger of world wide extinction and had their best known populations in Xàbia. This floristic richness is a result of the geological history of the area, and its current varied topography, with the mountains reaching down into the sea. At least 13 different plant habitats of special Community Interest were identified in Xàbia municipality. These were considered to be part of the town's natural heritage. (CB-J)

Xàbia's new Town Plan - reprieve for the Saladar ?
July 13th
The Town Council held a special meeting on Monday to approve the consultative document on the new General Town Plan (PGOU). The choices were to leave things as determined by the 1990 plan - which implied unsustainable growth, or implement a new plan based on the sustainability threshold, set by law to 20%. Basically this involves de-classifying 2.270.000m of urbanisable land to non-urbanisable, creating ecological corridors to connect the major protected zones and ensuring green zones on the borders of the municipality. More land in urban areas will also be reserved for green areas and public facilities. This would be in line with the "Estrategia Territorial de la Comunidad Valenciana" - Land strategy for the Comunidad Valenciana, which is still being drafted. In a surprise amendment, the ruling BLOC party proposed that the Saladar (http://agenda21-xabia.wikidot.com/saladar)  should be classified as Non-urbanisable land with special protection , since it comprises the "green lung" of the Arenal. They also proposed deleting the calle Cristo del Mar (in the Port, where the Cinema is) from the main road network. By this simple act, any Port expansion scheme (http://agenda21-xabia.wikidot.com/port)  would be effectively scuppered, since this road was earmarked as a major access to any new Marina/Port. The motions were passed with votes against or absentions from the opposition. From Press Release and XAD: El PGOU propone....
For Background on the General Plan see: General Plan. http://agenda21-xabia.wikidot.com/general-plan
For more on how they voted see: General Plan - Stance of the parties http://agenda21-xabia.wikidot.com/general-plan-stance-of-the-parties